Trump’s Executive Order Targets Homeless Americans
Credit Image: © Daniel Kim/dkim@sacbee.com/The Sacramento Bee via ZUMA Press Wire
Advocates say Trump’s new executive order criminalizes homelessness, eliminates support for Housing First and harm reduction programs, and violates the rights of America’s most vulnerable people.
Advocates Warn It Criminalizes Poverty and Undermines Proven Solutions
Advocates are sounding the alarm against President Donald Trump’s executive order on homelessness issued yesterday.
The order, titled “Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets,” directs the federal government and state authorities to treat homelessness and mental illness as crimes.
It also makes several large-scale changes to America’s homeless services system. First, it requires federal agencies to stop funding programs that practice harm reduction, provide safe consumption sites, or use Housing First principles to address homelessness.
The order also requires states to detain people with severe mental illnesses, regardless of the local hospital bed capacity.
Finally, the order also seeks to link homeless services funding to outcomes such as reducing urban camping, loitering, or squatting. The administration issued this directive even though federal agencies have reduced their spending on homeless shelters and affordable housing programs.
The executive order was issued at a time when homelessness continues to increase nationwide. Last year, more than 771,000 people were homeless in the United States, which represents an 18% climb from the previous year. About 275,000 people experienced unsheltered homelessness, meaning they slept in places not fit for human habitation, like under bridges, in encampments, or parks.
A Devastating Blow to Human Rights
Advocates slammed the order as one that increases criminal penalties for people trying to survive with nowhere else to go.
“Actions ordered through the [executive order] will be deeply harmful to vulnerable people and the nonprofit organizations that serve them and are counter to decades of research on proven ways to address and end homelessness,” Diane Yentel, CEO of the National Council of Nonprofits, posted on social media.
Trump has previously called for people experiencing unsheltered homelessness to be rounded up into federal camps. In 2023, Trump posted a campaign video where he said, “The homeless have no right to turn every park and sidewalk into a place for them to squat and do drugs.” He also called on cities to prohibit public camping.
“We will then open up large parcels of inexpensive land, bring in doctors, psychiatrists, social workers, and drug rehab specialists, and create tent cities where the homeless can be relocated and their problems identified,” Trump said. “We will open up our cities again, make them livable and make them beautiful.”
Rhetoric Meets Reality: The Dangerous Plan Behind the Promise
While Trump appears to be making good on one of his promises, his solution is built on a false premise. Trump’s executive order assumes that the reason homelessness is growing is because America hasn’t figured out a way to get people indoors and off the street. That is categorically false.
Housing First systems have helped reduce homelessness in cities across the country. Since 2010, Housing First has reduced veteran homelessness by 52% nationwide, according to research from Veterans Affairs. Denver, Colorado, used a Housing First approach to reduce unsheltered homelessness by 45% over two years. Several other cities have reported similar results.
The reason why America hasn’t solved homelessness is twofold. On one hand, the available solutions are criminally underfunded, and that prevents them from forming meaningful service-oriented relationships. That is why some cities have struggled to truly practice Housing First and instead practice Housing Only.
Second, many Americans believe unhoused people don’t deserve to receive the help they request. That is the underlying issue beneath the political roadblocks that many service providers encounter when they approach their government and request additional funding.
The Real Reason Homelessness Persists. It’s Not What Trump Claims.
Scout Katovich, senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s Trone Center for Justice and Equality, said the order shows how the Trump administration “displays remarkable disdain for the rights and dignity of vulnerable people.”
“Pushing people into locked institutions and forcing treatment won’t solve homelessness or support people with disabilities,” Katovich said in a statement. “The exact opposite is true – institutions are dangerous and deadly, and forced treatment doesn’t work.”
“We need safe, decent, and affordable housing as well as equal access to medical care and voluntary, community-based mental health and evidence-based substance use treatment from trusted providers,” Katovich continued.
Jesse Rabinowitz, spokesperson for the National Homelessness Law Center, described the executive order as “backwards, expensive, and ineffective.”
“Today’s executive order, combined with MAGA’s budget cuts for housing and healthcare, will increase the number of people forced to live in tents, in their cars, and on the streets,” Rabinowitz said.
“This order does nothing to lower the cost of housing or help people make ends meet. The safest communities are those with the most housing and resources, not those that make it a crime to be poor or sick,” he continued.
Legal Experts Warn: This Order Violates Rights, Worsens Outcomes
The order was also released at a time when many cities across the country are working to further criminalize homelessness. Those efforts have largely taken place after the Supreme Court issued its decision in Grants Pass v. Johnson, a case that allowed cities to use punitive punishments to address homelessness instead of investing in housing and supportive services.
According to the National Homelessness Law Center, more than 320 criminalization bills have been introduced since the Grants Pass v. Johnson decision.
Advocates like Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) and Maxwell Frost (D-FL) have introduced federal legislation to prohibit the criminalization of homelessness. Several states have also introduced the Gloria Johnson Act, a bill that would roll back many of the harmful measures used to address homelessness locally.
Michael Callahan, director of the Office of Homelessness Prevention in New York, said the order represents a “dangerous shift” in the way cities respond to homelessness.
“If we truly want safer, more resilient neighborhoods, we must fund housing-first systems, not just badge-first responses,” Callahan posted on social media. “This [executive order] leaves behind the very communities most at risk — while targeting the very policies designed to protect them.”
Criminalization Is Spreading, And This Order Supercharges It
Many communities have laws that criminalize activities homeless people need to do in public to survive, including:
- Sitting or lying down
- Loitering or loafing
- Eating or sharing food
- Asking for money or panhandling
- Sleeping in cars, outside, or camping
Not only is the cost of criminalizing homelessness high, but it also does nothing to solve homelessness and violates human rights. Anti-homeless legislation leads to homeless people being arrested or fined, which makes it harder to find housing and jobs and access social services.
Contact your legislators and demand that they stop supporting legislation that criminalizes homelessness. Instead, they should support policies that invest in Housing First, a proven, successful approach to solving homelessness.
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